SPINNING NEW CONNECTIONS — A REVIEW

When your life is spinning out of control, you might have to take a leap of faith to put a new spin on things.

Or so Katie Sanford thinks, when pushed up against the wall. It all started when she appears for her dream job interview still drunk from the night before. The night when she was just going to have one drink, and that one led to so many that she blacked out.

She is surprised to get that call a few weeks later from someone at the magazine where she interviewed. But the proposition before her is so astounding she isn’t sure she can do it. Go into rehab on the company’s “dime,” and get the scoop on a celebrity who has just entered that very center.

But she goes for it, feeling as if she can pull off the big act. But what surprises Katie the most is that the stories she hears in group and the insights she develops in individual sessions tell the truth about who she is and what her life has become. More drunken nights than she cares to count and more lies than she can recall.

During the thirty days of rehab and the first few days afterwards, Katie struggles with what she has learned about herself, and about her budding connection to the target of her story. Yes, she and celebrity target Amber have become friends.

What will happen when Katie has to turn in her story? What would happen if she doesn’t? And how will Henry, a man she is beginning to care about, feel when he learns of her betrayal?

Finding out what happens after, and what Katie’s decisions will do to her life kept me turning pages. I have a bit of an understanding of the rehab process from the work I did for many years, so the lingo, the process, and what it feels like to be confined were all authentically captured by the author. Kudos to McKenzie…and I loved every minute of the descriptions of New York life from the scene setting, the characters, and the repartee between the characters. I felt almost like I was right there with them. Five stars for Spin.

I enjoyed this book too and it’s good to read that the rehab was very authentic. Although I can’t imagine they’d ever put a singer and her lover in the same sessions! Or that the assistant of the man was allowed in on all that happened. But that didn’t take away from my reading enjoyment.